May 29, 2016

Jack Kelly's Back!

Imagine my blogger delight when I saw this from the Post-Gazette's Jack Kelly on my laptop this morning:

I’m delighted to be back at the Post-Gazette, but my heart is heavy. The danger is greater now than it was in July of 1863 that government “of the people, by the people, for the people” may perish from the Earth.

Ok, let's stop right there, if only for a second. All politics aside, Jack, I am delighted you're a cancer survivor.

Ok, so now let's finish Jack's sentence:

...to find my country afflicted by twin deadly cancers.

Twin deadly cancers?

Yep, here's Jack's next sentence:

The election of either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump spells doom for the constitutional republic for which — during my service in the Marine Corps and Army Special Forces — I was prepared to lay down my life.

And he's very clear on why he's not a Trump-guy:

Even if he weren’t a liberal Democrat, a con man, a boor and an ignoramus on public policy, I’d never vote for Trump because he’s the opposite of everything my parents taught me a good man should be.

Trump lies constantly. A good man’s word is his bond, my parents said.

Trump is a shameless braggart. A good man lets his deeds speak for him.

Trump is a cry-bully who dishes it out constantly, but can’t take it. His idea of “debate” is hurling an insult or making a threat. He blames others for his failings. A good man owns up to his mistakes, learns from them, my parents said.

A good man serves in uniform when his country is at war, my Dad said. (Mom wasn’t too keen on this maxim.) Trump dodged the draft, compared his sleeping around to fighting in Vietnam.

Wait, Trump's a liberal Democrat? All that other stuff is more or less true, but Trump's a "liberal democrat"?

But wait, it gets better, once he trains his eyes on the other cancer afflicting Jack's country:

Hillary Clinton is even worse. If they weren’t the presumptive nominees of their parties, neither Hillary nor The Donald could get a security clearance. There is little difference in their political views, none whatsoever in their (lack of) ethics.

Huh - "little difference in their political views"? Perhaps it would behoove Jack to take a look at the Trump list above.

Other than that, Jack gives us very little actual evidence as to why Clinton is worse than Trump despite there being little difference in their political views (huh??). The link Jack uses will bring you to a New York Observer column by John Schindler, a conservative security expert who had to resign from the Naval War College due to some unwelcome dick pics (yes, DICK PICS) that made their way onto twitter.

Dick pics, Jack? You couldn't find a better anti-Hillary ranter?

Anyway, this is what someone who never had to resign over some errant dick pics had to say about Clinton's emails (and this is published in Newsweek):

The recent report released by the inspector general of the State Department shows that, on the topics it analyzes, there is no Clinton email scandal. (The report doesn’t deal with classification issues.) And all the heavy breathing in news reports that there is something important here is bunk. Yes, the report shows that Clinton, former Secretary of State Colin Powell and the senior staff of former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice used personal email accounts for daily work communications. (Rice didn’t use emails at all.) And yes, it shows plenty of people in Democratic and Republican administrations made some mistakes in following protocol for emails. But once you start digging deeper, what’s clear is that the State Department’s management of the email systems and procedures was a long-standing Keystone Kops operation, which is why so many intelligent people on both sides of the political aisle screwed up—but screwed up in ways that largely do not matter.

And:

Here’s what this new inspector general’s report shows: When senior State Department officials swam in the deep pool of email rules, there were basically no lifeguards on duty. The office for ensuring compliance with the federal rules on communications—staffed by the people who were supposed to be reading all the Federal Register procedures and policy statements—has been a horrifically underfunded, understaffed and ineffective group for many years, starting long before Clinton arrived at the State Department. As the report says, “Longstanding systemic weaknesses related to electronic messages and communications have existed within the Office of the Secretary that go well beyond the tenure of any one Secretary of State.… The Department generally and the Office of the Secretary in particular have been slow to recognize and to manage effectively the legal requirements and cybersecurity risks associated with electronic data communications.’’

And finally:

And that’s why the Clinton email scandal isn’t a scandal. Underfunded, understaffed offices responsible for compliance didn’t do a great job, leading to potential mistakes by many senior State officials who were in office long before Clinton; poorly written rules allowed for the use of personal email accounts; the experts were fully aware of the arrangements but raised no concerns to her or her staff; documents were preserved but not in the precise way dictated by the rules. Can this rationally be called an issue in this presidential campaign? No. But in our hyperpoliticized world, reason doesn’t matter.